


Racing Through Memories

by Songbird_wings



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin and Aayla grew up together, Fluff, Gen, Obi-Wan is a tired Dad, Padawan Aayla Secura, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, Podracing (Star Wars), Prompt Fill, Sneaking Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songbird_wings/pseuds/Songbird_wings
Summary: “What are you doing here? Come to gloat at my misery?” Anakin says with a smirk, using the force to take the top hoploads off their pile and sets them in front of him. Aayla chuckled.“Not exactly.” He watched as Aayla reached into her robes and pulled out two slips of paper. Tickets. She held them up to him and he recognized them instantly; Podracing.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 74





	Racing Through Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: for the fic prompts: anakin and aayla are about the same age and I like to think they grew up together as their masters, obi-wan and quinlan, were close so I'd love to maybe read something with them being friends and teasing each other as adults.
> 
> This was written for the above prompt given to me by @imadetheline on Tumblr! She's amazing so go give her a follow! I love the idea of Aayla and Anakin growing up together, and so I hope you like this fic, Maddie! 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Anakin hated library duty. It was boring, quiet, and he hated the stuffy Masters that paid no attention to him when he asked if they needed assistance. This job made him feel invisible. But Master Kenobi always told him it was an important duty given to Padawans his age, and that it would teach him the importance of tranquility, knowledge and patience. That didn’t make it any less boring. 

He sat now in a far corner of the library, eyeing the stacks of papers and holo-disks he needed to organize. They towered above him on his desk, some coated in a thin layer of dust. He wondered if they really needed to be sorted or if Jocasta Nu just ran out of other tasks for him to do. 

“Anakin… psst!” A whisper came from behind him. He spun around maybe a little too quickly, his padawan braid smacking him in the face. His eyes scanned the shelves but he saw nothing. Surely he wasn’t hearing things. Anakin got to his feet and approached the area the noise came from. When he reached the bookshelf he paused, he quickly jumped into the aisle.  _ Empty _ . That can’t be right, he was sure he heard something. Anakin shook his head and turned back to his desk.

“Hi Anakin!” Aayla greeted quietly. Anakin's shriek however was not as muffled. 

“Aayla!” He lowered his voice, once he calmed down. “Stop scaring me like that. It’s  _ not _ funny.” Aayla just snorted and skipped over to his desk as he sat back in his chair. 

“I think it’s pretty funny. Besides, it’s probably the most excitement you’ve had after being assigned library duty.” She jokes, running a finger over a holo-disk and scrunching her nose at the dust left on her fingers. 

“What are you doing here? Come to gloat at my misery?” Anakin says with a smirk, using the force to take the top hoploads off their pile and set them in front of him. Aayla chuckled. 

“Not exactly.” He watched as Aayla reached into her robes and pulled out two slips of paper. Tickets. She held them up to her and he recognized them instantly; Podracing.

“Whoa!” Anakin gasped, snatching the tickets from her hand. “How did you get these? I thought Podracing wasn’t popular on Coruscant.” Aayla grabs them back, holding them to her chest now. 

“It’s not, at least on top. There's an underground course that you can only get into with a ticket. Master Vos took me to one last year but there was a big crash and he never brought me again, although he kept going without me.” The Twi’lek explained leaning onto the side of the desk. 

“So these are Master Vos’s tickets.” Asks Anakin. She nodded. 

“They are, but he was called away on an assignment and he’ll be out of the system so I thought, why let these go to waste. And then I thought, who else loves podracing?” She takes one ticket extending it to Anakin. He grabs it and stares at it intently, and then reality set back in.

“I can’t go.” He mumbled, holding the ticket back at her. 

“Why?” Aayla’s brows furrowed looking at the ticket then to him. 

“If Master Kenobi found out I left library duty,  _ and  _ snuck away from the temple to go to an underground podracing match, he might send me back to Tatooine.” Anakin slouched in his chair. 

“Oh come on!” Aayla whined. “It’ll only be for a few hours. No one will know you’re gone. Please, it’ll be fun!” She pleaded, nearly bouncing up and down. Anakin so wanted to say yes. He hadn't been to a podrace in forever. He missed the excitement and adrenaline that came along with the sport. Aayla did say they would only be gone a few hours. Master Kenobi wouldn’t suspect anything. 

“Okay fine, I’m in!” He exclaims. Aayla squealed and then checked the time on the clock above them. 

“Meet me by the statues on the south exit of the Temple in four hours.” She instructed him as she began walking away. “ _ Don’t _ be late!” 

Slipping out of the library was much easier than Anakin originally anticipated. The librarian was nowhere to be seen and it was late so the isles were pretty much empty. He quickly made his way to the south exit and outside near the statues was Aayla was waiting for him. “You still have your ticket?” She asks, holding up her own. 

“Yes.” Anakin responds fishing it out of his robes. “But how are we getting there? You didn’t forget about that little detail did you?” Aayla scoffed. 

“You think so little of me, Anakin. Follow me.” She said and she led him down the steps of the temple where a speeder bike was parked and waiting. 

“ _ Where _ did you get this?” Anakin awes, he makes his way over to it admiring the design. 

“My Master gave it to me as a gift. I’m not supposed to use it without his supervision, but, he’s not in the system so he’ll never know.” She shrugged, getting on the vehicle and starting the engine. “Get on and hold on.” Anakin climbed on behind her and gripped the sides of the bike as she drove it into a lane. The bike shook and chugged beneath them and there was a faint smell of burning metal emitting from the engine. 

“You know, if you opened the couplets and tightened the bolts near the exhaust, it would run a lot smoother.” He shouted over the sounds of traffic. 

“Okay, you can do that once you're done with library duty if you care so much about it!” Aayla teased back, steering them down below the surface. They descended further and further, until Anakin began feeling a little anxious. But he pushed that feeling away, and replaced it with his excitement over the podrace. It was darker on this level, the only light coming from the lamps on the streets. Finally, Aayla parked their bike and the padawans climbed off. 

“You didn’t get us lost did you?” Anakin chides, pulling his hood over his face, watching Aayla do the same. She just rolls her eyes. 

“Come on, it’s about to start!” She says and takes off down the road. Anakin chases after her until she stops in front of a building. It definitely doesn’t look like an entire podracing course could be inside it’s small frame. But below his feet, Anakin could feel the ground rumble, just slightly. 

“Tickets!” A raspy voice shouted out from the ticket booth in the front of the building. Aayla nudged Anakin, prompting him to show the ticket. The woman in the booth scanned the tickets and then the padawans. “Watch yourselves in there, kids.” She says nodding in the direction of the door. 

“Thank you!” Aayla told her, as Anakin pushed her way past eager to be the first in the door. On the other side was a staircase that led them down into a large chasm of a room. They seemed to be on a balcony that overlooked the circular podracing course. The room was packed, dimly lit, and smelled of drinks and something Anakin could’t place, but it wasn’t pleasant. He didn’t care though, the familiar hum of the repulsorcrafts racing in the course called to him. He ran to the edge to watch, ignoring Aayla as she told him to wait. 

He found a spot he could squeeze into and looked over the edge at the race. The course was huge, built in segments with different terrain, one sector being desert and another a dense forest. He watched as the repulsorcrafts dodged and weaved at dangerous speeds through the trees and he even cheered with the rest of the crowd once the last racer cleared the forest. He sensed Aayla coming up behind him and he moved over a few inches to give her space.

“You see that one?” She pointed at one of the podracers near the front. Their repulsorcraft was small, and painted in purples and light greens. The vehicle was driven by a Rodian woman and she was picking up speed quickly. “That’s Alvee Chunteff, she’s won so many races down here. My Master is a huge fan.” Aayla explains, shouting over the noise. She and Anakin stand on their tiptoes as the racers round the curve of the course, trying to get a better look. 

“Here she comes!” Anakin says as she passes the racer already in first place, taking the lead. The podracers zoom past them sending a plume of dirt in the air but the padawans cheer anyway. The excitement distracts them, and Anakin didn’t sense the figures coming up behind them before it was too late. Hands grab at their shoulders and pull them from the crowd to the back of the room, cornering them against the wall. They were pirates, drunk pirates by the smell of it. Anakin reached for his lightsaber but Aayla grabbed his arm, shaking her head,  _ no.  _

“Hey kiddos.” One of them coughed out. He reached down and ran his finger along Aayla's padawan beads. She flinched away and Anakin stepped in front of her. “Long way from the Temple isn't ya!” 

“Leave us alone!” Anakin shouted to the pirates, there were three of them, blocking any direction he could run.

“Ah, see, that’s just not gonna happen.” The one in front of him laughed. “I’ve noticed ya don’t seem to have any Masters with ya. What a shame.” He shook his head stepping closer. “Do you know how valuable you are to the Jedi, hm? Do ya? How much would the council pay for two padawans to be returned to home safely?” Almost like an alarm going off in his mind, Anakin sensed the one on his left lunging forward and grabbing Aayla, before his hand could even touch her, Anakin reached out and sent the pirate sailing across the room, slamming him against the wall. The room stood still for only a moment until the noises and the movement started again. 

“Run!” Anakin yelled, grabbing Aayla’s arm, taking the new opening he’s created. 

“After those kids!” The pirate shouted behind them. Anakin and Aayla made their way through the crowd, back towards the way they came in, but it seemed more pirates were in the crowd than chasing behind them. Hands were grabbing at them, slowing them down. One grip was a little too strong and the pirate yanked Anakin back making him fall to the sticky floor. He opened his eyes and the pirate's cruel smile was above him. 

“Ay, boss I’ve got-” Anakin didn’t let him finish as he used the force to send him crashing into the ceiling and falling back down to the floor. Aayla came out from the crowd next to him and pulled him to his feet. 

“Let’s go-” Anakin started saying once he was upright again, but he was cut short when he sensed it. Then he saw  _ him. _ The sound of a lightsaber activating quieted the room.

“Those padawans are more trouble than they’re worth. I’d leave them alone if I were you.” Obi-Wan's voice filtered over the crowd. Anakin was torn between running into his Master's arms, or running away back to the Temple. He wasn’t given a choice. “Anakin, Aayla, you’re leaving.  _ Now!” _ Anakin could feel the disappointment seeping off of Obi-Wan and it made every step towards his Master even more difficult. The pirates ran past them and the Jedi Knight, back towards the staircase. Obi-Wan pointed in that direction. “The speeder is waiting for you outside.” Aayla and Anakin shared a solemn look before following his orders and exiting the podracing rink. 

On the way back to the Temple, it was Aayla who apologizes first, admitting that it was her idea and that she was sorry. “It is not my place to tell you your punishment, young one.” Obi-Wan said to her. “That will be your Masters decision once he returns, as for you, Anakin.” 

“I’m sorry, Master. It won’t happen again.” He mumbles to Obi-Wan.

“Oh, I hope not.” The Knight replies.

“How did you find us anyways, Master?” Anakin questions him as they pull into the Temple hanger bay. 

“Maybe next time you decide to slip out on your Jedi duties, you do it in a place that doesn’t have so many cameras.” Obi-Wan smirked, stepping out of the speeder. He winked at his apprentice and then pulled Anakins robes tighter around his shoulders. 

“I’ll take that into consideration, Master.” 

  
  


<<<>>>

  
  


_ “It’s Starork taking the lead now as he passes Ikti around the bend, this is a close one folks, it’s too early to say…”  _ The announcer is drowned out by the shouts of the crowd around them. Anakin cheers and gives a high-five to his padawan as the racers continue. 

“So, how’s your first podrace going, snips?” He asks her as they settle into their seats, Aayla emerges from the crowd and sets the overpriced snacks onto their table. 

“It’s amazing! I can’t believe you did this when you were a kid, Master!” She exclaimed over the noise. “I didn’t know you were such a fan, Master Secura?” 

“Oh, your Master and I would always sneak away to races growing up. One time, we ran into pirates while we were down here. Alone. We were very lucky Master Kenobi found us in time.” She explained. 

“Alright, you don’t need to give her any ideas, Aayla.” Anakin rolls his eyes. 

“Pirates?” Ahsoka sat up in her seat. “I want to hear about that!” Anakin shakes his head.

“Like I said, you don’t need any more reckless ideas in that head of yours.” He says sternly, taking a sip of his drink. “Now c’mon, we’re missing the race.” He motions them over towards the edge of the course. 

Ahsoka eyes Aayla once her Master is away from the table, pleading with her eyes. Master Secura laughs at her eagerness. “I’ll tell you the story later, young one. When your Master isn’t around to add in his own version.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it leave a comment, they make my day and encourage me to write more! :)


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